Who will stand up for Jews today?

Awoken by sirens wailing over large parts of central Israel last weekend, I pulled on whatever clothes I could find beside my bed and shuffled down to the bomb shelter in the basement. The missiles, launched from Yemen by the Iranian-backed Houthis, didn’t distinguish between ideologies or identities. More or less every Israeli in the strike zone – left-wing or right-wing, religious or secular, Jew, Arab, Christian, Muslim, or other – did the same.

Those without safe-rooms of their own rely on communal shelters, often meeting their neighbours dressed in pyjamas or wrapped in bath towels. Those who get caught away from home rush into the nearest building to be ushered into someone else’s shelter. For those ten or so minutes, until the all-clear was given, I found myself united with Israelis by something primal and deeply human: the instinct to survive, and the equally profound need to protect one another.